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James Brokenshire, the immigration minister, told MPs that in March and May the passport office had recorded the highest level of applications in any month over the past 12 yearsPA

Fariha Karim

Last updated at 12:01AM, June 11 2014

The economic recovery has fuelled an unprecedented surge in passport applications, a minister has said, leading to chaos for thousands of families struggling to get their travel documents before the holiday period.

MPs described yesterday how they had been inundated with complaints from constituents about delays in receiving passports, adding that “tens of thousands of people” faced having their summer holidays ruined.

The passport agency has a backlog of 500,000 overdue passport applications, according to Labour. Claims that there is no backlog of travel documents were challenged by leaked photographs revealing piled-up boxes of hundreds of files of applications stacked